Category:Naiads

English: In Greek mythology, the Naiads (from the Greek νάειν, "to flow," and νἃμα, "running water") were a type of en:nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks, as en:river gods embodied rivers, and some very ancient spirits inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes, such as pre-Mycenaean en:Lerna in the Argolid. Naiads were associated with fresh water, as the en:Oceanids were with saltwater and the en:Nereids specifically with the Mediterranean; but because the Greeks thought of the world's waters as all one system, which percolated in from the sea in deep cavernous spaces within the bosom of the earth, to rise freshened in seeps and springs, there was some overlap.